1. The Field Of The Invention
This invention relates to cigarette holders and cigarette guards combined into a unitary apparatus.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
The prior art abounds with cigarette holders of wide variety. U.S. Pat. No. 1,647,322 issued on Nov. 1, 1927 to J. S. Valero teaches a pair of clamshell-like wire mesh screens hinged to one another and having an open mouth portion adapted to grip a portion of the periphery of a cigarette therein. A handle is attached to one of the screen elements useful by grasping by the fingers of the user. Such device suffers the deficiency of requiring the apparatus to be expensive to manufacture in that the bifurcated screen element must be carefully machined so as to eliminate the possibility that sputtering wastes of the cigarette may accidentally emerge from the screen shroud at the location where the screen shroud element engage one another when closed.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,931,732 issued Oct. 24, 1933 to N. A. Lanzillotti el al discloses an elongated cigarette holder fabricated from a rigid material, one end of the holder is adapted to be inserted in the mouth of the user, the other end of the holder is adapted for insertion of one end of a lit cigarette thereinto. A ring is secured to the holder along a portion of the surface of the length thereof adapted to have a forefinger of a user inserted therein. Such apparatus, though convenient to use and support a cigarette therein, suffers the deficiency of not providing any form of shroud in which the cigarette ash and lit particles emerging from the lit end of the cigarette may be contained.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,827,059 issued on Mar. 18, 1958 to A. Czap discloses a cigarette shroud fabricated from a metallic element having a plurality of annular grooves disposed therein forming a type of screen. Attached to one end of the tubular screen is a conventional cigarette holder fabricated from a rigid material and adapted to have one end thereof in use by insertion in a user's mouth. The other end of the holder is provided with an opening in which the unlit portion of the cigarette may be disposed. This invention teaches an apparatus suitable for encasing the lit end of a cigarette therein, but does not at all provide facility for smoking a cigarette down to the very nub by virtue of that portion of the cigarette which is retained within the rigid holder. Of similar design is the apparatus patented by E. Mason on May 5, 1959 bearing U.S. PaT. No. 2,884,830. Such apparatus differs only from the apparatus of Czap in terms of the screen element encasing the cigarette. However, the Mason's teaching suffers the same deficiency as that of the disclosure to abide Czap.